October 23, 2006 at 1:45 pm

For those of you who have never experienced the creamy delightfulness that is ice cream cake, here’s a picture of a typical slice. Warning: Do not click that link if you have not yet had lunch! I will not pay for the Windex required to clean the saliva off your monitor. It features a layer of vanilla ice cream and a layer of chocolate ice cream separated by a crunchy fudge layer and coated in a creamy sort of icing. My birthday ice cream cake was so good it gave both my mother and my brother ice cream headaches. Now that’s some good cake!

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The A Dress a Day blog had a great entry about how You Don’t Have to Be Pretty, which isn’t specifically about being fat, but you could easily substitute the word “pretty” for “thin” in that post and include it on any weight loss blog. It also made me think of every asshole I’ve passed at the grocery store who’s said “Smile!” Fuck them. It’s not my job to look pretty for every guy pushing a grocery cart.

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Last week Diet Blog posted an entry about 10 Questions To Ask Before Changing Your Diet which I enjoyed because it reminded me that so much of dieting has nothing to do with what you’re putting in your mouth. The next time someone asks a fat person why they don’t just eat less I think I’ll point them there.

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I promise to post new progress pictures sometime this week or at least as soon as I can find my battery recharger. Cameras eat batteries faster than I devour ice cream cake.

There was a very interesting bit of blogging about the whole “smile!” entitlement that made the rounds a bit back on some feminist blogs. Some good reading at the posts linked here, if you haven’t read them before.

It was a great discussion. I take the coward’s way out and and wear headphones on my bus and subway commute to avoid smile commands (and random conversational attempts) from complete strangers. Even with headphones, some guys still try though.

I was just going to say in my previous post (but got too lazy to type it): I have earphones on all the time when I’m alone (outside, metro, bus, pharmacy, grocery store etc.) and it’s even more annoying when I see someone mouthing some words, I take one of my earphones off, thinking he’s asking for the time or directions, only to hear “SMILE!”, or “SMILE, DAMMIT!!!” (or even worse: “Hey baby, [insert stuff about my body or his dick or a combination thereof here] !!”). All I’m thinking is: “I took my earphone off, and stopped to pay attention to what they’re saying, for this?”

Sometimes I just point to one of my earphones, shrug and just keep walking, hoping that they weren’t asking me to call 911 for them.

Hope you enjoyed the cake and had a very happy BDay! It brought back memories when you talked about someone telling you to smile. God, men used to to that when I was young and single all the time when out with friends or everywhere. It would upset me so much as it was constant! I think it is a way for some men to pick up women, I really do. What they don’t know is, we are thinking (shut the fu#k up! I’ll smile when I darn well please!)

Thank you SO much for posting the “You Don’t Owe Pretty” link. It’s a great reminder in a world that is constantly trying to make you feel like you do owe pretty, or thin, or happy, to everyone around you. Fuck that. I was tired of feeling crazy for my opinion that it is the other person’s problem if they don’t like my outfit, appearance, or facial expression, and that post was great.

Also, I am relatively new here, but you look AMAZING. And a resting heart rate of 50? Awesome! I can’t believe how much you have accomplished. I’m 24 pounds into a 136-pound weight loss goal, so it does me a lot of good to see your success. Congratulations and thank you.

I never understood why men who approach me at the grocery store that say “Smile”! never look like The Rock, John Cena, Brad Pitt or a male stripper. They always look like Jack Black in Nacho Libre…

Besides that, you don’t know what is going on in someone’s life at that particular moment. If they do not look like they want to be bothered, then maybe you should leave them alone. I usually pretend that I cannot hear them. So they have to repeat everything a few times and then just give up. It works wonderfully! It also works with certified idiots at the office.

Jennette Fulda tells stories to the Internet about her life as a smartass, writer, weight-loss inspiration, chronic headache sufferer, and overall nice person (who is silently judging you). She does this at JenFul now, but you can still have fun perusing her past here.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for keyboards ruined by coffee spit-takes or forehead wrinkles caused by deep thought.